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The Highlander Navigation system is a DVD based touch screen system that does provide verbal commands but does not have any voice recognition capabilities. I have only had a few days to play with it, but having a Nav system in my other car, I personally would not purchase a new automobile without one. It's not inexpensive though - $2,000 option. It's like many other things, if you don't have one, you won't miss it. If you have experience with one, you will probably want to check that option box.

I agree with nsxwes that once you get one, you'll want it in your next car. It's pretty similar to the one in our Jag, but the screen is also useful for the hybrid diagram stuff (which is a pretty good toy in its own right). I'm guessing it will be worth something at trade-in time, but it's not a "must have" (unless the dealer says you "must have" it if you want to buy what's in stock).

Tomslyck, I like what you have to say. I am currently looking for a car with great gas mileage as well as being a heavy and safe vehicle. I am a self distributed wine maker and I need to hold a lot of wine, however I do not want a huge 8 mpg unparkable ( for downtown garages and busy streets) rig. I currently drive a Subaru. I am looking for an all wheel drive. Am I too late to order one of these? Anyone want to sell?

Shop around the country on the Internet. You will probably find one with little wait. Don't get sucked into some eBay $5k premium. They will be available as some people already found out. One guy walked onto the lot and drove off in his new HH.

Kels, I'm not about to sell mine, but if you make some phone calls you might find a dealer that has one. I actually got a call 10 minutes ago from a dealer. I had put my name on his waiting list with no deposit and hadn't expected to hear back from him. I don't know if we're allowed to talk about specific dealers, but he's in San Bernardino. That's a two hour drive from my house, but I felt it was worth it to avoid a long wait.

That's a neat trick on the navigation screen. But has anyone worked out how you could play dvd videos on that screen? It must be possible, right? I'd read that there was an older system that would allow you to do this when the vehicle was in park.

Separately, the consumption of gas is truly disappointing. What's worse is that, with wear-in, it seems to get worse. I was getting better mileage before . . . even though I'm trying harder. The only hope is going to be a plug in.

Here is a way that will allow you to not have "greyed out" NAV screen options while in motion. You or your passenger can enter addresses, POI, read "info", etc while the HH is moving. I found this on a Lexus board and tried it in my HH and it seems to work. The downside is that it must be reentered each time the HH is started. I have found it easy to memorize the sequence after a few uses. It is very distracting to use, so of course, be careful. Moreover, this process opens up other 'programming' areas of the HH of which I have no knowledge so again, watch out. Steps:

Push 'hard' MENU buttonPush soft 'VOLUME' buttonTap the SPEAKER ICON (upper left)Tap the bottom left corner of the screen (nothing is there) Tap the SPEAKER ICON (upper left) again Tap the bottom left corner of the screen (nothing is there) A new menu, SERVICE, appears Hold 'OVERRIDE' soft button until a beep.

We calculate our MPG with odo readings & fillups and look at the display MPG. It is usually less on the display. BTW, watch the overfilling; service managers @ 2 dealerships cautioned about overfilling, overfill filter, etc. It can get expensive.

I traded a Tundra Dbl. cab in on the Hh. We can almost double our MPG with the Hh. And the accelaration from a standstill or 70 MPH is impressive. Yes, this is V8 like accelaration with V6 fuel economy.

Does any one have a picture of the HH dashboard view without the DVD navigation System ? I am waiting form my 4wd-i HH Ltd Edition. I picked up the highest edition and all that i opted out of was the DVD Navigation System. I always felt you can get a more feature rich Navigation System from the market at a much lesser price.

I was disappointed (shocked) when i got to know that my Limited Edition HH will not have the Touch Screen Display in the center console because i Opted out of DVD Navigation.

I dont understand why should a Vehicle Dynamics Display be coupled with a Navigation System ? Even if it were so i would have called it a "Vehicle Dynamics Display with Navigation Assistance" to make it obvious to the potential buyers on what they could expect.

Does any one have a clue if it would be possible to add a display to one the comes from the factory without it ?

Don't construe that site as a means of solely safety. If you look at some of the posting from Prius owners, many of the posts involved inaccurate data from the NAV system. This was a good thing because Toyota issued a free upgrade and admitted there was problem with the data. If you don't speak up and make an issue of it, you won't get anywhere. Believe me, if enough people complain, they'll listen. Strength in numbers. Don't let the car companies push you around. I wish the Saturn mentality would transcend to other dealerships.

The Nav screen provides quite a bit of information. It has a power diagram that shows what motors are on and which way the juice is flowing. It is cool to show your friends but I don't find myself looking at it much any more. There is also a screen that shows current mpg and average mpg over five minute periods of the last 30 minutes. I usually have this screen on.

The screen also works in conjugation with the stereo and climate control. I think it is a bit misleading that Toyota advertises the option as simply a navigation system when it is more than just nav.

Not Unique:1. A/C controls - replaceable by knobs and buttons in non-NAV version.2. Stereo - replaceable by knobs and buttons.

What we would have missed if we did not have the screen? 1. We would not know why the ICE engine would come on at various time. is it charging? is it turning the wheels? is it just heating the catalytic converter? 2. We would not have an on-board MPG number to check against our manual MPG number at each fill-up.

We find the navigation system useful and practical and have begun to use it a lot. It is a nice convenience but not a critical essential to us.

Overall, we find the energy flow and MPG info most useful in helping us change our driving behavior. One of us would do a pratice drive while the other watches the screen and voice the data and changes. As extremely curious engineers, the screen answered many questions we would have had if we did not have it.

I have the HiHy w/o NAV. I have various bits of information displayed on two separate read-outs that you cycle through by pushing a button. One display is just below the speedometer and shows odometer/trip odometer; outside temp.; energy flow and traction battery status; and current mpg (on a graph). The other source is right above the AC controls and shows outside temp.; AC temp. setting; current mpg; avg mpg; and time elapsed since last start up. I pretty much keep the first one on the energy flow/battery status and the second on the avg mpg.

The touchscreen for the NAV system in my HH Ltd has an intermittent problem which started just recently. After driving for a 1/2 hour or so, the touchscreen does not work at all. So, I can't work with the NAV system, change the climate control system, do anything with the audio system or any of the features that work via the touchscreen. Stopping and turning off the car and then restarting does not help but leaving the car overnight seems to reset everything. The problems consistently start again after driving for a while.

I have my 5000 mile maintenance scheduled in a few days. I know intermittent problems like this can be difficult for the technicians. Does anyone know of a solution for this or have any information I can share with the technicians?

I am new to these systems and the NAV seems to take me the longest possible routes to my destination even if I allow for major highways and toll roads on the icons. Does anyone know what I may be doing wrong?Also whenever I turn the AC off I cannot adjust the heat temperature. Is that normal?

Thank you for the reply. For the Navigation system I am going from 3025 Highland Parkway in Downers Grove,IL60515 to 523 S. Plymouth Ct Chicago,IL.60605 It actually minus a few turns 2 major highways Toll88 and highway 290 are all that should be used. When I am on 290 it keeps wanting me to get off at every exit rather than stay on and just take a right onto my street.Nothing happens when I push the temp up and down buttons when the AC is off. I think it did when I bought it.

In the Toyota automatic climate control you have to have the AC/heater system ON in order to change the interior temp. My Prius is the same. If it's OFF then all you have is ambient air temp from the outside, like the old 'vent' method on older cars.

When the cabin gets comfortable for me after 5-10 min then I turn the AC off or keep it ~69-70.

OK that sounds like you have it set not to take freeways. When I test it on my nav, it is taking those freeways.

When you set your destination you'll see "Route Preference" on the side with a Change button below. If you are already being guided, press the Route button then Route Preferences. Turn on all applicable options such as Allow Freeways, Allow Toll Roads, etc. (Each button is a toggle, when it is "on," there will be a yellow indicator.) Let me know how it goes.

There is an on on-line VIDEO manual showing how to do this and it shows step by step how to get to the 3-button screen. Turn on your computer VOLUME because it provides spoken instruction as well. The following link takes you to Toyota site that does this, it is fairly intuitive.

Once you are in iGuide, the main menu list is on the left with RED background. Select the "NAVIGATION SYSTEM".

That pops up the navigation system video manual in the video screen area. There is a submenu and the third submenu item is "DESTINATION INPUT BY ADDRESS". Press that and the VIDEO starts playing showing step by step how to get to the 3-button screen eventually.

It is a bit long winded but worth the time. Once you get used to this, there are a few other ways to get to the screen but they are all use more or less the same work flow.

If you have freeway & toll road options on then the only other thing that I can think of is that you selected the "Short" route instead of the default "Quick1" route. There should be no other reason for it keep telling you to get off the freeway.

Follow cdptrap's instructions to get to that button when entering a destination. If you have already entered a destination and have a route set, you can get to the 3-route selection by pressing "Route" then "Search Condition". Then you can change this setting while within the route.

Note, the three route thing is not a global setting. Each route you set is defaulted to the Quick1 route. It only takes Quick2 or Short route if you explicitly select them.

BTW, what map version do you have? Press Menu then Map DVD to find out.